I'm not doing macro photography a lot, but I'm kind of getting fond of shooting tree trunks, one example attached, with pixelpeep crop (I just noticed some pepper noise in the pixelpeep, it was a longer exposure and I obviously didn't clean up it fully).
I know a lot of theory about normal landscape photography, but I have only briefly studied macro so I don't really know what to expect in this area.
Currently I typically shoot these with the SK90 (attached example is SK90), SK120 or SK180 at f/22. At this close range that f/22 probably is more like f/32 so you really get diffraction. On the other hand the depth of field is so incredibly short that I usually find f/22 to be the least bad solution, the tree trunks are curved and it's just too much out of focus otherwise. The pixelpeep crop show how it looks in the focal plane, that is soft from diffraction.
I'm thinking of that maybe I should get a macro lens, mainly looking at the SK80.
However, I'm not sure if it will get me any sharper results, without also shooting say f/11 and employ focus stacking to get the DoF I need. Rendering size for my images is about 1:4, I'm not into 1:1 macro or beyond.
I don't find focus stacking to be very practical/enjoyable out in the field though, so I will then probably choose this fuzzy diffracted way of shooting, and I guess an SK80 macro at f/22 1:4 won't be any sharper than an SK90 at f/22 1:4?
I use a 33 megapixel back, 7.2 um pixels. I'm not really dissatisfied with the results I get, I think I get enough detail for the subject, but I'm a bit unsure if I'm doing this right, say if a SK80 would produce noticably sharper results. It would also be interesting to know if anyone except me shoots this kind of images without stacking these days.
Any advice welcome.
I know a lot of theory about normal landscape photography, but I have only briefly studied macro so I don't really know what to expect in this area.
Currently I typically shoot these with the SK90 (attached example is SK90), SK120 or SK180 at f/22. At this close range that f/22 probably is more like f/32 so you really get diffraction. On the other hand the depth of field is so incredibly short that I usually find f/22 to be the least bad solution, the tree trunks are curved and it's just too much out of focus otherwise. The pixelpeep crop show how it looks in the focal plane, that is soft from diffraction.
I'm thinking of that maybe I should get a macro lens, mainly looking at the SK80.
However, I'm not sure if it will get me any sharper results, without also shooting say f/11 and employ focus stacking to get the DoF I need. Rendering size for my images is about 1:4, I'm not into 1:1 macro or beyond.
I don't find focus stacking to be very practical/enjoyable out in the field though, so I will then probably choose this fuzzy diffracted way of shooting, and I guess an SK80 macro at f/22 1:4 won't be any sharper than an SK90 at f/22 1:4?
I use a 33 megapixel back, 7.2 um pixels. I'm not really dissatisfied with the results I get, I think I get enough detail for the subject, but I'm a bit unsure if I'm doing this right, say if a SK80 would produce noticably sharper results. It would also be interesting to know if anyone except me shoots this kind of images without stacking these days.
Any advice welcome.